New Product Developments

Duplex Compressor Pack 125Kw Duty

June 2007

Developed primarily for large onion stores this Duplex set up gives the advantage of choosing to run one compressor only which will provide 93Kw duty for use of the same store for Potatoes at 3°C.

The Duplex Pack can be supplied as pictured in an open style for building into a plant room or alternatively in a pre-wired outside housed box.

Open Drive Bitzer Compressors give the best possible efficiency rating for Global Warming when compared to semi-hermetic or fully hermetic machines.

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GSM Text Alarm System for Irrigator

June 2007

                                     GSM Com Link Alarm 003

This alarm unit has been manufactured for a customer with an unmanned field irrigator.  In the event of a High or Low Pressure, Oil or High Temperature Trip, a fault text message is sent to nominated mobile phones describing the fault that has occurred.  In addition a text message is sent to the irrigator to shut it down remotely if required.  Using a standard 'pay as you go' sim card the cost of running this unit is very low.

The price of this GSM Alarm System is around £600.00 plus VAT ex works

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New Onion Store Controller Released for 2007

May 2007 - Introducing the all new Cropscan OC16 Onion Stage 1 & 2 RH Controller

Following on the success of the Cropscan OC8 Onion controller the Cropscan OC16 has been developed to offer many enhancements to the operator.

Key Features:

Up to 16 Crop RH sensors can be monitored.

Ambient RH can be monitored.

LED Duct temperature Readout with optional High and Low temp alarms.

Improved RH air blending with 3 levels of timed louvre pulsing to achieve fine tuning of Duct Target RH level.

Extra Large 4 line x 40 character easy read Blue/White LCD display giving easy access to Set Up Data / Readouts.

User friendly set up with instant access to all current set point information.

Fan run times recorded for RH conditioning and Stage 2 Recirculation.

Hourly and daily 7 day "Look Back" data analysis read directly from the LCD display to give instant feedback of controller operations.

Compatible with current FE HC-L 0-10volt RH sensors.

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Compressors Packs Just Keep Getting Bigger!

Due to customer demand for larger and larger Onion Storage buildings Farm Electronics has introduced its largest ever Packaged Refrigeration Compressor Unit.                   

Utilising a Bitzer open drive screw compressor the latest pack delivers a massive 120kWatts cooling duty at 0° Celsius making it suitable for buildings with up to 1800 tonnes of onions in storage.

The pack can be assembled and delivered ready to install in an on-site plant room or alternately housed in a custom built Outside Housing which also supports the condenser on top giving the whole assembly a very compact overall footprint.  The fully housed version also benefits from having the electrical control panel mounted inside the housing and is pre-wired to the compressor motor and controls within the housing.

Three of the above systems have been constructed for the 2005 season and demand for these larger capacity systems is expected to rise in the coming years.

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Auto Ramp Down for Cropscan 16 mc3

In response to customer feedback an ‘Auto Ramp Down’ feature has been added to the control software of this popular Store Controller.

This option allows the operator to set the final Crop Storage temperature with a maximum cooling differential. The initial high crop temperature will then be reduced to a controlled even ‘ramp’ until the target is reached. This is possible due to the sophisticated processor capability built into the Cropscan 16 mc3. During the ramp (or pull down) period the maximum cooling temperature differential is calculated against the average of all the active crop sensors. In this way the whole store is cooled in as even and controlled manner as is possible.

Once the crop has been pulled down to target temperature the ‘ramp down’ system can be switched off and the normal highest sensor control logic is used instead.

Comments from users that have used this software have been very favourable as it removes a great deal of the day-to-day adjustments to the Cropscan during the pull down phase of storage. In addition it will achieve the job in a more controlled and therefore efficient way.